[HN Gopher] California regulators vote to keep Diablo Canyon nuc...
___________________________________________________________________
California regulators vote to keep Diablo Canyon nuclear plant open
5 more years
Author : philipkglass
Score : 129 points
Date : 2023-12-20 20:08 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.powermag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.powermag.com)
| gedy wrote:
| This is great news if we are serious about CO2 emissions, vs
| NIMBY in the guise of "environmentalism"
| chuckadams wrote:
| I agree in principle, but it's also sitting right next to
| several fault lines. PG&E claims it's engineered to withstand
| quakes, but given PG&E's history, I'm not inclined to take them
| at their word on anything.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Is there a government body who examines these claims that we
| could trust instead?
| chuckadams wrote:
| That would be the CPUC, which is apparently siding with
| PG&E. I can actually see CPUC's side here, there really
| aren't any good alternatives that are ready to go in any
| reasonable timeframe, but I do hope they're actually doing
| some independent verification of PG&E's claims.
| kelnos wrote:
| The CPUC is so completely captured by PG&E that I don't
| really trust much of what they say when they agree with
| PG&E on things.
|
| That's not to say that they aren't correct, but I refuse
| to give them any kind of blanket trust.
| gustavus wrote:
| Wahoo! I mean it'd be nice if we could start not building nuclear
| reactors on fault lines, but I think this is a good start.
|
| One of the things people underestimate in physical systems is the
| amount of tribal knowledge there is and how it actually takes
| skill and training for a country to become good at something.
|
| One of the biggest challenges facing us right now is the fact
| that we've been reducing nuclear power and if we want to expand
| it we're going to need capable professionals to be able to do it,
| those won't spring out of thing air. Keeping existing facilities
| open will allow us to start training up new engineers that can
| work in new installations. b/c tbh ramping up nuclear work is
| probably one of the most important and pressing issues facing not
| just America but most countries to an extent right now.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Wahoo! I mean it'd be nice if we could start not building
| nuclear reactors on fault lines, but I think this is a good
| start.
|
| It'll be okay, since when the big one hits and CA falls into
| the ocean, it'll just take the plant with it. So the rest of us
| will be just fine.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Chinese or French nuclear power engineers should be in abundant
| supply, maybe we could just import the knowledge?
|
| When I was graduating from high school, I did the navy
| recruiting thing just for kicks, and after taking the asvab,
| they said I had a promising career in navy nuclear. But that
| scared me away from the military, since my dad had a career in
| nuclear power, we even got a DOE settlement after he died of
| cancer, they don't put nuclear power plants in nice places,
| it's not the career I wanted. Towards the end of my dad's
| career, many of the engineers were Central American (??? Not
| sure why) or Indian already. We can totally import the
| expertise in the future, especially if we are will big to build
| out French or Chinese designs.
| kelnos wrote:
| We shouldn't be expanding nuclear power in California. We have
| so much sun, so much wind, and so much open, undeveloped land.
|
| The calculus for other places (low-sun, low-wind) will
| certainly be different, but I don't think it's useful or
| productive to build new nuclear plants in CA.
|
| I think it's the correct move to keep this plant running: it
| works, today, and shutting it down would undoubtedly mean
| picking up the slack with more natural gas burning, at least in
| the medium term, and that would be bad. But building more? I
| just don't see the need.
| fasthands9 wrote:
| Happy to hear the state is making a wise decision here, instead
| of bowing over to conservation groups who only consider climate
| goals when it aligns with their larger conservation focus
|
| https://www.sierraclub.org/michael-brune/2016/06/nuclear-pow...
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I think this is problem with nuclear power... You can never get a
| new project started without a public outcry.
|
| So instead of new, safe, carbon neutral nuclear power (like
| thorium reactors, passive cooling, etc), we're are continuing to
| running literal old-timer nuclear plants (Diablo Canyon was built
| in 1981).
|
| Most folks would not drive a car from 80s, but somehow we're cool
| with running powerplants that old.
|
| IMHO The best for our carbon footprint with safety would be new
| nuclear plants.
| passwordoops wrote:
| My knee jerk reaction to the headline was "YES"!
|
| Then your healthy dose of reality had to bring me down
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The Diablo Canyon plant construction is closer to WWII than it
| is to today.
| kelnos wrote:
| So what? How long are power plants "supposed" to last?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Design lifespan for a nuclear plant is typically 30-40
| years or so.
| panick21_ wrote:
| There are still many old nuclear plants running just fine and
| produce electricity at decent prices.
|
| Not that I am opposed to new nuclear construction but its a
| completely wrong to suggest these old plants are to old.
| idopmstuff wrote:
| Do you have any specific criticisms of its safety? Age doesn't
| make something unreliable or unsafe. If you had a Nokia phone
| in the 80s, I'll bet that thing is more reliable than any phone
| produced in the last decade.
| dheera wrote:
| I'm all for more nuclear power displacing natural gas and
| coal and worse things until we can find a way to deploy
| renewable energy faster. Nuclear is near-zero carbon, it's
| just not renewable, but that's less of a problem in the short
| term.
|
| What I don't like is that Diablo Canyon is built on the
| shoreline, which is ripe for another Fukushima-like disaster
| in the event of a tsunami that hits California.
|
| Even if that cliff edge is high it may destabilize with a
| high enough wave.
| undersuit wrote:
| Reliably unusable and unsafe. The defunct first generation
| cellphone networks had no encryption.
| epistasis wrote:
| The problem with nuclear is not the public outcry against it.
| That did not stop our attempts at Vogtle or Summer in the
| 2000s.
|
| What stopped these new nuclear builds, and doomed future new
| nuclear builds, was fraud on the part of management,
| unconstructable designs, incompetence in EPC, etc. these are
| the challenges with nuclear.
|
| If somebody could build cost effective nuclear that didn't
| bankrupt those building it, there are roughly 100 reactors in
| the US nearing their end of life that local populations would
| love to keep running.
|
| Nuclear didn't die because of public outcry in the US, it died
| because of cost overruns and bankrupting utilities. No buyer
| wants to take on that risk.
| philwelch wrote:
| Almost all of the cost issues with nuclear power is
| regulatory in nature. https://www.construction-
| physics.com/p/why-are-nuclear-power...
| IntelMiner wrote:
| With how brazenly the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has
| been captured? Unlikely
| epistasis wrote:
| Even if this were true (and I have my doubts), nobody has a
| proposal for a different regulatory scheme that would lower
| costs. France has seen similarly high costs with an
| entirely different regulatory scheme, for example.
|
| "Regulations" are the excuse of people that didn't do their
| homework or prepare for the serious work of large
| construction projects. All of which have huge overruns in
| the US, regulations or not.
|
| In truth, it's a labor and productivity problem. Advanced
| economies have far more productive uses for workers than
| sitting around construction sites, waiting for something to
| arrive so that they can finally do a small amount of work
| before waiting some more.
| philwelch wrote:
| Tell me you didn't read the link I shared without telling
| me you didn't read the link I shared.
| epistasis wrote:
| Oh I've read that thing many times, it gets linked
| everywhere...
| credit_guy wrote:
| > In truth, it's a labor and productivity problem.
|
| Yes, and the gigantism of the projects does not help.
| Here's an example [1]. Last week they mounted the reactor
| dome at Hinkley. Here's a quote: > Using
| one of the world's largest cranes, known as Big Carl, the
| dome - with a diameter of almost 47 metres, height of 14
| metres and weighing 245 tonnes - was lifted and then
| slowly lowered onto the 44-metre-high reactor building.
|
| SMRs would address that. Every single thing about
| gigawatt scale reactors is extremely expensive. If you
| reduce the scale of the reactor by a factor of 10, then
| you won't need "Big Carl", you would not need a 245 ton
| dome, you wouldn't need containment vessels that can only
| be build by a handful of forges in the world [2] (none in
| the US).
|
| You are absolutely right, this has nothing to do with the
| NRC. They have a job to do, and in a world where
| Fukushima can happen, you can't be too careful.
|
| But can SMRs reduce construction costs? The anti-nuclear
| crowd is dancing in the streets for the failure of
| NuScale to keep the Utah project alive. But NuScale is a
| player with zero experience. There are numerous other
| players [3] that actually build reactors. For example one
| is BWXT, a company that makes nuclear reactors for the US
| Navy.
|
| [1] https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/Articles/Hinkley-
| Point-C-...
|
| [2] https://world-nuclear.org/information-
| library/nuclear-fuel-c...
|
| [3]
| https://aris.iaea.org/Publications/SMR_booklet_2022.pdf
| camel_gopher wrote:
| The mass production aspect of SMRs should provide some
| economies of scale for construction costs. Needing a
| large crane doesn't scale.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Nuclear didn't make it because coal was to cheap. People now
| are willing to pay more for solar/wind and so on, and
| government is willing to help pay for it. This wasn't the
| case for Nuclear in the 70/80s.
|
| Combine that with the complete rewrite of regulation and the
| whole governmental structure in regards to nuclear, making
| them much tougher to build, killing much of the research,
| limited political support from either side and so on and so
| on.
|
| They had to essentially rebuild plants according to newer
| standards stopping all new construction. While some of those
| changes were worthy, its also objectively true that coal
| plants were not subjected to nearly as much additional
| regulation despite them being much less save both for the
| workers and for the population around.
|
| So if you have one standard of safety applied to one thing,
| and a completely different standard to another thing, then of
| course nuclear can't win in a market situation.
|
| Large scale nuclear is successful if you can do it at scale.
| But that needs a top down approach or at least government
| approval and support.
|
| Had nuclear received the kind of support wind/solar had in
| the last 20 years, the US would have transition to nuclear at
| a rate comparable to the adoption of oil.
| wffurr wrote:
| Who is paying more than coal for solar? Building new solar
| costs about two thirds what it costs to run an existing
| coal plant.
| panick21_ wrote:
| Now it does. Not 20-30 years ago. And then building more
| gas would have been cheaper, specially in the early
| 2000s.
|
| The government has used many mechanism to push those
| things, not sure how that's questionable. Including to
| force Utilities to adopt renewable energy (even those
| that already had carbon free nuclear). Other laws that
| prevent pricing on intermittence. Support and tax-breaks
| for rooftop solar. And lots of other policies.
| the_doctah wrote:
| Am I crazy to think something like a nuclear power plant should
| last decades?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| > Most folks would not drive a car from 80s, but somehow we're
| cool with running powerplants that old.
|
| What is the connection between car longevity and nuclear power
| plant longevity?
| kelnos wrote:
| Given the renewable option, I don't think CA should be building
| new nuclear plants. The state has plenty of sun, year-round,
| and plenty of open, undeveloped space to build PV fields with
| battery storage.
|
| I think it's perfectly fine (and smart) to keep Diablo Canyon
| running longer. $6B over five years doesn't seem crazy at all
| for a plant rated for 2.2GW. And shutting it down when our
| generation mix still heavily relies on burning natural gas
| would be a step backward.
|
| But renewables are here now, today, and are cost-effective,
| much more so than building new nuclear plants, which are _huge_
| capital undertakings, that take many years to build, and the
| disposal of nuclear waste is still fraught with political and
| NIMBY issues.
|
| I think you are incorrect to suggest that building new nuclear
| plants (even the new safest, cleanest designs) is the best bet
| for our carbon footprint. It seems pretty clear to me -- at
| least in a place like California -- that solar is miles ahead
| the better choice.
|
| > _Most folks would not drive a car from 80s, but somehow we
| 're cool with running powerplants that old._
|
| C'mon, that's just disingenuous. You can't just throw out a
| random machine and try to compare it apples-to-apples with a
| nuclear power plant.
| jefftk wrote:
| _> Diablo Canyon was built in 1981_
|
| More relevantly, if you're talking about the age of the design,
| construction started in 1968.
| epistasis wrote:
| > the cost to maintain the plant an additional five years could
| reach $6 billion.
|
| This does not appear to be a serious attempt to help the
| environment with carbon-free electricity.
|
| It looks more to be a PR move to satisfy people who have been
| boosting nuclear, without regard to costs.
|
| $6B for a mere five years is highway robbery. Installing $4B of
| solar and $2B of batteries will result in 20-40 years of carbon-
| free electricity, and far far far more of it.
|
| Those who have been boosting nuclear without a hard nosed look at
| the costs of technologies have a lot to answer for here. This is
| just a PR game.
| koolba wrote:
| > $6B for a mere five years is highway robbery. Installing $4B
| of solar and $2B of batteries will result in 20-40 years of
| carbon-free electricity, and far far far more of it.
|
| How would you install $6B overnight? That alone would take
| years. And where do you buy it from? China?
| epistasis wrote:
| $6B is not a ton of money when it comes to solar and
| batteries, these are technologies on massive scales. Using
| round numbers of roughly $1/W for solar and $500/kWh, my off-
| the-cuff split buys 4GW of solar and 4GWh of batteries. For
| comparison, 6.5GW of solar was installed Q3 2023 in the US,
| and this is a tiny tiny fraction of the global market.
|
| The challenge with large installs is the interconnection
| queue and permitting, not any industrial capacity limitation.
| And these could be solved by CPUC with a snap of their
| fingers, like they snapped their fingers to extend Diablo
| Canyon.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| As someone who has worked closely with those running the
| Interconnection studies, this sounds overly rosey.
|
| The ISO (in this case CAISO) runs those studies for a
| reason to maintain grid reliability. The reason they're
| slow is that it involves a crazy amount of simulations to
| determine grid upgrades and it is difficult when things
| must be done recursively and when the renewables developers
| speculate so much.
|
| If the state regulator could snap their fingers, they would
| have done so in California, New York, the Midwest...
| everywhere. They made some changes to speed things up in
| Texas, but honestly they're kicking the can down the road.
| coderintherye wrote:
| Costs have shrunk dramatically just in the last 12 months.
|
| Solar is down to around 0.25 / watt at bulk. Battery,
| LiFePo4 is $200/kWh.
|
| Those are retail bulk prices. Commercial/Industrial prices
| are similar or sometimes better on commercial-sized
| equipment.
|
| Granted, as you noted interconnection and permitting costs
| are high and going up and labor costs have risen and those
| are the main costs now.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Solar prices are way down: $0.07 - 0.08/W[1]. For a large
| order in billions, it can be negotiated further down.
|
| [1] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/10/13/solar-wafer-
| prices-hi...
| black6 wrote:
| Is $1/W purchase or installed cost? Installation usually
| inflates the cost 3x.
| brandensilva wrote:
| China has the solar panel market cornered, so probably. Of
| course they might decide to cut us off given all the trade
| drama so I'm not sure even that is a sure thing.
| throwitaway222 wrote:
| And we're losing. We need to fight back
| panick21_ wrote:
| Good then they should run it for even longer if they are gone
| do so much maintenance.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > $6B for a mere five years is highway robbery. Installing $4B
| of solar and $2B of batteries will result in 20-40 years of
| carbon-free electricity, and far far far more of it.
|
| Do batteries and solar panels have lifetimes of 20-40 years?
| epistasis wrote:
| Yes, batteries are around 20 and solar panels around 40 years
| these days.
| PopAlongKid wrote:
| >. Installing $4B of solar and $2B of batteries will result in
| 20-40 years of carbon-free electricity, and far far far more of
| it.
|
| Beginning when? Diablo Canyon is already on line today, and
| just as importantly, tonight.
|
| Where is the land going to come from to support $4B of solar
| panels? How many times will those batteries need to be replaced
| over 20-40 years? What are the ongoing maintenance costs? How
| will all that solar be connected to the grid?
|
| Alleging "PR move" and "PR game" without similarly considering
| the motivation for your comments weakens your position.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Where is the land going to come from to support $4B of
| solar panels?
|
| The desert. https://www.kqed.org/news/11935070/solar-energy-
| farms-are-bo...
|
| Doesn't take as much as you'd think.
|
| https://landartgenerator.org/blagi/archives/5535
|
| > The land area required to supply 100% of projected U.S.
| electricity demand in 2050 with PV installations is roughly
| half the area of cropland currently devoted to growing corn
| for ethanol production, an important consideration given the
| neutral or negative energy payback of corn ethanol and other
| complications associated with this fuel source. That same
| land area - i.e., 33,000 km2 to supply 100% of U.S.
| electricity demand with PV -is less than the land area
| occupied by major roads. The currently existing rooftop area
| within the United States provides enough surface area to
| supply roughly 60% of the nation's projected 2050 electricity
| needs with PV...
|
| You could power California off a solar field roughly the size
| of Andrews Air Force Base.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, but I think the GP's point is that this doesn't just
| happen overnight. Let's say the same people who planned out
| keeping this nuclear plant open another 5 years today said
| "ok, let's plan out a same-price solar build and get it
| started".
|
| How long would you expect the planning process to go,
| buying up the land, permitting, the construction process,
| connecting it to the grid, testing, and then finally
| energizing it? A couple years? More? (Also remember that
| this is California, where people will put up stupid
| roadblocks even for construction out in the desert, away
| from anyone's home.)
|
| Now, they absolutely should be doing that in parallel! It's
| dumb that they aren't. But this nuclear plant is running
| today, and will continue to provide much-needed
| electricity, and that'd still be needed if we got this
| (unfortunately only hypothetical) solar project going right
| now.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Sure, but I think the GP's point is that this doesn't
| just happen overnight.
|
| The article says Diablo Canyon generates 2,250 megawatts.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California
| says "The Solar Energy Industries Association predicts
| that California will increase its solar capacity by over
| 27,000 MW over the next five years".
|
| According to the chart titled "California Solar PV
| Capacity by Year", they added two Diablo Canyons worth
| (4,779 MW) of PV capacity last year alone.
| Aloha wrote:
| More importantly, Nuclear generates the base load
| capacity that renewables struggle with - the 27,000 MW is
| great, but its use it or lose it, as we dont have
| anywhere near the capacity in place to store the excess -
| nor will I think we will build it in anything resembling
| a timely manner.
| reportingsjr wrote:
| Keep in mind you need to multiply those power numbers by
| capacity factor. Solar in California is at ~29% capacity
| factor (much higher than I expected honestly), while
| nuclear is generally around 92%.
|
| That is, Diablo Canyon actually puts out 2,070MW of power
| from it's nameplate 2,250MW. While 4,779MW of PV in
| California will generate 1,385MW of power.
|
| So, they really only added half of a Diablo Canyons worth
| of capacity last year. (Still an impressive amount of
| power, but not as much as it seems).
| realusername wrote:
| It seems that people do not understand that capacity
| factor is the #1 criteria when building an electricity
| grid.
|
| Electricity grids do not have the luxury of being able to
| shut down, they must meet the demand every day of the
| year, every minute of the year
|
| Technologies with an higher capacity factor are
| inherently more valuable than the ones who don't and
| technologies with an unpredictable capacity factor are
| worth even less than those two.
| epistasis wrote:
| If that's the reasoning, it's just a variant of the sunk
| cost fallacy.
|
| The question is what is the most effective use of our
| limited resources right now. Diablo Canyon will be shut
| off at some point, causing a momentary blip in emissions
| rising. Is $6B on a short extension a good use of our
| resources? It's certainly difficult to see much benefit.
|
| Instead, the benefit is mostly to assert that we still
| are open to using nuclear. Which, fine, is a good goal,
| but instead what if we just spent $3B each on an SMR,
| with the expectation they would probably fail? I think
| that would have a bigger positive impact towards more
| nuclear in the future.
| peyton wrote:
| Check the markets. Everyone's losing money on solar. If
| there's a sunk cost at play, it's probably there.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Solar projects take about 6 months. Solar projects are
| one of the only types of major infrastructure project
| that regularly come in ahead of schedule and under
| budget. (I couldn't quickly find the cite for this, but
| if I find it again I'll edit it in).
| Gud wrote:
| If you show me a 1GW solar plant that took 6 months to
| build, I'll eat my hard hat.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| California added ~5GW in solar last year.
|
| Doesn't have to be all in one project.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| And how many years ago did those start planning?
| credit_guy wrote:
| Some things that are easy in theory are not as easy in
| practice.
|
| In theory it's so easy to build lots of huge solar power
| plants. We all know that solar is dirt cheap, because we've
| all seen the Lazard report with the levelized costs of
| energy.
|
| In practice, here's the list of solar power stations in
| California [1]. None is close to 1 GW. Only 3 are above
| half a gigawatt nameplate capacity. But their capacity
| factor is on average less than 30%.
|
| Or to put it differently, 20% of the electricity generated
| in California comes from solar, and 9% from nuclear (i.e.
| from Diablo). If you want to replace nuclear with solar,
| you need to increase the current solar generation by 50%.
| That's doable, but it's not something you do overnight, it
| will very likely take a few years. Meanwhile, guess what
| you'd use to replace Diablo? Of course, it would be natural
| gas, which, by the way, accounts for 47% of the current
| generation.
|
| We've heard the story of nuclear being replaced with
| renewable in my state, New York. Two reactors, with a
| combined capacity of 2.1 GW were shut down in 2020 and
| 2021. But instead of renewables, they were replaced with
| natural gas [2]. > As a result of the
| permanent shutdown of the plant, three new natural-gas
| fired power plants: Bayonne Energy Center, CPV Valley
| Energy Center, and Cricket Valley Energy Center were built,
| with a total capacity of 1.8 GW, replacing 90% of the 2.0
| GW of carbon-free electricity previously generated by the
| plant.[6] As a consequence, New York is expected to
| struggle to meet its climate goals
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in
| _Cali...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Point_Energy_Center
| epistasis wrote:
| The solar doesn't need to be in one large install, and
| that would actually be a very bad idea. Big central
| points of failure are less reliable than widely spread
| resources. So I'm not sure what the point is of saying
| the biggest single site is X MW.
|
| And if the idea is that "oh no we are going to see an
| emissions spike when DC shuts down" that's going to
| happen anytime before 2035, while there's still gas on
| the generation network. If it happens now or in five
| years is less important than the total emissions over
| time. If we bit that bullet in five years, but didn't
| spend the $6B on more permanent solutions that bring us
| to our long term transition, it's money wasted.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| California already has a lot of solar installed in the
| desert. They could just expand that. Nuclear is a base load
| though, so they would need batteries or pumped storage to
| add to that.
| Aloha wrote:
| Nuclear also generates base load - I dont think zero fossil
| fuel is possible (peaking is the hard one to solve), but I
| know its not even close to possible without replacing the
| base load supplied by thermal plants - without base load
| capacity, the grid goes down when the wind doesn't blow and
| the sun is down.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| Land requirement for Solar is negligible. Solar can be
| installed on lakes, reservoirs, canals, in deserts, on
| superfund sites, on farmland as agrivoltaics and on
| highways[1]. All these options are available in California.
|
| A small fraction of land used for ethanol (40M acres) is
| enough to supply all the electricity that US needs.
|
| But, I agree with you, Diablo Canyon is ready now, we should
| keep it online. We can't deploy new nuclear anyways, might as
| well keep the existing ones as long as possible. Besides, it
| might cost a few billions to decommission anyways.
|
| (1) California Is Ideal For Highway Solar:
| https://cleantechnica.com/2023/09/05/solar-along-nations-
| hig...
| creddit wrote:
| Maybe what you're saying is true but it's pretty unclear to me.
| According to the article, it supplies 10% of the state's
| electricity needs. $6B over 5 yrs => $1.2B/yr => total cost of
| state's electricity at $12B/yr.
|
| With a population of 40M this would mean yearly cost of
| electricity per capita in CA would be $300. That sounds
| extremely cheap.
|
| Doesn't sound like highway robbery to me but maybe you can make
| that clearer rather than just tossing out "install $4B solar
| and $2B batteries which is obviously better, idiots!".
| cinntaile wrote:
| That's very dependent on how much the plant contributes to grid
| stability and what it costs to produce electricity.
| Ankaios wrote:
| Wikipedia claims the plant generated 16 TW h of energy in 2019.
| At $6 billion for five years of generation, that corresponds to
| about 8 cents per kilowatt hour. That's not great, but it
| doesn't seem like highway robbery to me. Seems reasonable to
| keep using the plant while building up solar and storage
| capacity.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Wikipedia also claims that PG&E pays more per kwh for solar,
| without storage.
|
| If diablo Canyon is cheaper than the next best alternative,
| then it obviously makes economic sense to keep it. It doesnt
| matter how scary the big number is if the alternative is
| higher
| philipkglass wrote:
| Diablo Canyon delivered 17,593 gigawatt hours of electricity in
| 2022 [1]. If California had continued to install solar power at
| the same rate it did 10 years ago, that much solar output would
| have been added in the last 3 years alone. Coupled with battery
| storage like you suggest, that would also cover the early
| evening demand peak in California.
|
| However, California's rate of solar addition slowed down
| considerably since 2014. It went from 3,813 GWh of utility
| scale solar generation in 2013 to 9,932 GWh in 2014 for an
| annual growth of 6,119 GWh. But from 2017 to 2022 it grew by an
| average of only 2,994 GWh annually [2]. This happened at the
| same time that solar hardware costs continued to decline
| rapidly. California was more aggressive about building large
| scale solar projects when it was more expensive, and has oddly
| slowed down compared to other states in recent years. That's a
| reason that Diablo Canyon is still needed.
|
| If California picks up the pace again on decarbonization with
| renewables, _then_ Diablo Canyon can shut down. It shouldn 't
| shut down while natural gas is still California's top
| electricity source [3].
|
| [1]
| https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/#/plant/6099?fr...
|
| [2]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_California#Gene...
|
| [3] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-
| almanac/califo...
| gustavus wrote:
| I'm so tired of all these people that seem to be firmly
| convinced that we can't do nuclear and any other option.
|
| Why can't we do both? We run nuclear for the base load that
| will always be there and then supplement it with wind and solar
| and what not. We know nuclear works we know it is stable. My
| understanding is that a lot of the battery and solar technology
| needs to be replace every few decades or so and generally
| involves mining operations that are highly toxic and produce
| many emissions.
|
| Not too mention that we have to construct elaborate massive
| sprawling battery infrastructure to supplement a grid that
| depends heavily on wind and solar in order to answer the simple
| questions of "what about when it is nighttime or cloudy, or the
| wind isn't blowing?"
|
| I don't get why so many people are fighting against nuclear.
| Either we need to do everything possible to reduce carbon
| emissions or not. Nuclear does not rely on some battery
| technology that is "almost there", and that is "showing
| promise". It is a proven technology that works and has a
| reliable answer.
|
| So in short nuclear for the base, solar and wind for the
| supplement. There is no reason we can't do both.
|
| P.S. Given the massive amount of government money being handed
| out for "green technologies" there's part of me that wonders
| about how honest this objection to nuclear and pushing of solar
| and wind is.
| Aloha wrote:
| I dont know why you're being downvoted, you're correct.
|
| We need base load capacity to replace thermal fossil fuel
| generation, it's not negotiable if you want the lights to
| work reliably 24 hours a day, no matter the weather
| conditions. Be it nuclear or more hydro - or we reconfigure
| to only run hydro when we need base load - either way it must
| be there.
|
| I dont think we can reach zero fossil fuels, because of the
| need for peaking generation - but we can get pretty close
| though. Having to fire up a dozen gas turbines during severe
| weather conditions seems like a small price to pay if the
| other 99% of the time we could go without any fossil fuels at
| all.
| bombcar wrote:
| We also can change our minds and turn a plant off later, if
| production outstrips demand.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Diablo Canyon produces ~2 gigawatts of power rain or shine.
|
| Let's say you need 12 hours of battery capacity, so 24 gWh.
|
| A casual google search says grid-scale storage is $300-600 per
| kWh. Even generously assuming $300/kWh, that's $7.2 billion
| just for the batteries. How long do the batteries last?
| beders wrote:
| Just look at Diablo Canyon's contribution to the power mix at
| https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
|
| It is insignificant. If you'd add batteries and more
| renewables you could easily replace it and have money to
| spare. It's a political stunt.
| kelnos wrote:
| I wouldn't call 8.5% insignificant. It's certainly not a
| majority, or even a plurality, but "insignificant" is
| surely downplaying its importance.
|
| And if we shut down Diablo Canyon today, what do you think
| would replace that 8.5% in the years before a replacement
| solar+battery field could come online? Probably gonna be
| more natural gas.
| anonporridge wrote:
| 8.5% out of one plant for the entire state of California
| is fucking enormously significant.
| Tuna-Fish wrote:
| Not with the $6B.
|
| The math just doesn't work, even if the solar was free, you
| could not purchase enough batteries with $6B to replace
| Diablo Canyon.
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| Are you going to provide a logical argument or just point
| to a pie chart and say "hey look nuclear is the smallest!"?
| credit_guy wrote:
| > $6B for a mere five years is highway robbery
|
| The average price of electricity in California is 27 cents/kWh,
| or $270/MWh [1]. Some of this go to middlemen, but some to
| producers. I don't know the split, but let's say it's half and
| half.
|
| Diablo produces about 16000 GWh of electricity per year [2]. At
| $135 per MWh it comes to $2.2 BN/year, or $11 BN for 5 years.
|
| So $6 BN is not quite highway robbery.
|
| [1]
| https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.ph...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Wholesale electricity prices are usually around 10% of
| retail.
| amluto wrote:
| Which makes one wonder why PG&E is permitted to charge so
| much for "generation".
| undersuit wrote:
| You can move to Texas and sign up for retail rates from
| one of their lesser regulated providers, and when the
| temperatures drop and your energy markets spike in value
| you too can pay market rates to heat your home.
| shadowflit wrote:
| For reference, my PG&E bill splits out transmission/delivery
| and generation very conveniently, since SF provides its own
| power generation utility service. It appears to be closer to
| 60/40. At PG&E generation rates (a little higher), perhaps up
| to 55/45.
|
| Incidentally, $0.13748/kWh in generation costs, with an
| increase of only $0.01/kWh for exclusive wind/solar sourcing.
| epistasis wrote:
| That generation cost is also far far higher than the cost
| of new solar. New floating offshore wind, a new technology
| that is "expensive," is about at that generation cost.
|
| Even the $6B here amounts to roughly $0.08/kWh, which is
| far higher than the alternative uses of the money.
|
| Electricity is expensive in California not because we use
| renewables, but because we have not switched to them, and
| because PG&E has astronomical costs for its grid. We need
| CPUC to start pushing back harder here.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| That's not what PG&E says. They say they are paying more
| than $0.08/kWh for solar producers, and that's not even
| with storage.
| cheald wrote:
| "Could reach" is a fairly hedged phrasing, there.
|
| The plant generated 16,477 GWh in 2021 [1]. Over 5 years, it'd
| generate 82,385,000,000 kWh. At the LAX average retail rate of
| $0.287/kWh [2], that generation would return $23,644,495,000 in
| revenue.
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53899
|
| [2] https://www.bls.gov/regions/west/news-
| release/averageenergyp...
| epistasis wrote:
| That retail rate of electricity is mostly T&D; generators of
| electricity get far less than $0.10/kWh. Somebody else in
| this thread estimates that the $6B would result in $0.8/kWh,
| which is 50%-100% more expensive than new solar.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You so almost have a point I'd agree, but then go off the rails
| with your nonsensical solar retort.
|
| I agree the expense sounds extraordinarily high to the point of
| not being profitable at all, but I'm not an expert in the
| energy sector so maybe the industry numbers really are that
| high.
|
| however, my arm chair quarterback position in solar would
| immediately recognize you're numbers being touted for a solar
| solution in $ and years are just made up
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > $6B for a mere five years is highway robbery. Installing $4B
| of solar and $2B of batteries will result in 20-40 years of
| carbon-free electricity, and far far far more of it.
|
| Because the goal isn't generating arbitrary amounts of carbon-
| free energy. The goal is _displacing_ fossil fuel use with
| carbon-free energy. California is already hitting daytime
| saturation of energy demand for about a month of the year. $2B
| in batteries isn 't actually going very far. The US manages to
| build battery storage at ~500/KWh. So 2 Billion is only about 4
| GWh. The Diablo canyon plant puts out 2.5 GW of electricity, so
| this is less than 2 hours worth of battery storage relative to
| the plant its replacing.
| mat_epice wrote:
| Citation required. You cannot replace Diablo Canyon with $6B of
| solar and batteries.
|
| Installing your proposed $4B of solar will get you 4GW at peak,
| which will produce about 5840 GWh per year due to variations in
| sunlight over the days and seasons. Diablo Canyon produces
| 18,000 GWh per year. Replacing Diablo Canyon with solar will
| cost $12B plus batteries, maintenance, and operations staff.
|
| Figures/Sources:
|
| - $1m buys 1MW of solar panels that provides 1,460 MWh per
| year. https://coldwellsolar.com/commercial-solar-blog/how-much-
| inv...
|
| - Diablo Canyon produces 18,000 GWh per year.
| https://diablocanyonpanel.org/history-of-dcpp/
| epistasis wrote:
| The solar panels last far longer than five years...
| Mtinie wrote:
| The panels do but that just means the far more efficient,
| next gen panels that come on the market five years from now
| will be purchased and used to replace the original set.
|
| So in reality, the often cited "20-40 years of utilization"
| they offer is nice to say but has minimal practical impact
| on future costs.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| That's a worst case cost estimate, I doubt it will be anywhere
| near $6B spent on plant maintenance and operation 5 years from
| now.
| jupp0r wrote:
| Let's do the math. I'm leaving out capital costs for Diablo
| Canyon because I'm guessing it's paid off at this point.
|
| Diablo Canyon is producing 2 GW. $6B / (5 years * 2 GW) is
| approximately $0.069/kWh.
|
| That sounds extremely competitive to me and not "just a PR
| game". You won't get solar and batteries installed and
| connected to the grid cheaper than that (especially not at
| current interest rates), sorry. There's also the fact that
| Diablo Canyon is running right now, while getting large amounts
| of solar and batteries connected to the grid is a years long
| process at this point due to grid operator connection planning
| backlog.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sibling posters seem to think that $6B isn't unreasonable (and
| that $6B spent on solar+batteries won't come close to replacing
| this plant), but I won't address that.
|
| Take a look at today's CA electricity source mix[0]. Regardless
| of cost, why would you shut down a nuclear plant (prematurely,
| when there's no renewable capacity _right now_ available to
| replace it) when we still burn so much natural gas?
|
| Shutting down that nuclear plant now would require that 2.2GW
| supply to come from somewhere else. And I bet you it would end
| up coming from fossil-fuel burning. Even if the plan was to
| spend that $6B on building out solar and batteries, that would
| take, what... two or three years to come online?
|
| Now, we should be doing both! Keep this nuclear plant online,
| and accelerate building out solar fields and battery storage.
| We shouldn't be building more nuclear plants, but things that
| work today... work today. Shutting this plant down _right now_
| would seem like a net negative, carbon-emissions-wise.
|
| [0] https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
| yongjik wrote:
| So build those cheap, affordable, clean $6B solar plants _in
| addition to_ nuclear plants and let 's use them. California
| spent $100B on high speed rails that aren't even working yet,
| it can certainly fund two $6B energy projects.
|
| 47% of CA's power generation is still coming from fossil fuels
| as of 2022 [1], and that's before we consider non-electricity
| energy uses. It's ridiculous to watch people demanding we
| choose exactly _one_ of nuclear or renewables while we 're
| spewing CO2 to the atmosphere every single day.
|
| [1] https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-
| almanac/califo...
| jefftk wrote:
| _> Installing $4B of solar and $2B of batteries will result in
| 20-40 years of carbon-free electricity_
|
| This doesn't mean anything without specifying the amount of
| generation. Would that give you 18TWh [1] over the year?
|
| [1] https://www.pge.com/en/about/pge-systems/nuclear-power.html
| SnooSux wrote:
| Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant sounds like something out of a
| video game.
| Lammy wrote:
| Previously shut down:
|
| --
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humboldt_Bay_Nuclear_Power_Pla...
| in 1976 because of "BE AFRAID!!!"
|
| -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vallecitos_Nuclear_Center in
| 1977 because of "BE AFRAID!!!"
|
| --
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rancho_Seco_Nuclear_Generating...
| in 1989 because gas generation was artificially cheap (tell that
| to my current power bill)
|
| Canceled during construction, and you can go see the big hole in
| the ground:
|
| -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodega_Bay_Nuclear_Power_Plant
|
| Never started:
|
| -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundesert_Nuclear_Power_Plant
| (two units)
|
| -- Corral Canyon (Malibu)
|
| -- San Joaquin Nuclear Project (four units)
|
| -- Stanislaus (two units)
|
| -- Vidal Valley (two units)
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "BE AFRAID"?
|
| Both of those links indicate they discovered _seismic faults_
| below the two facilities after construction. That seems like a
| reasonable thing to be wary of.
| Lammy wrote:
| https://www.usgs.gov/programs/earthquake-
| hazards/science/ear... "The speeds of today's data
| telecommunications systems are many times faster than seismic
| waves."
|
| https://public-blog.nrc-gateway.gov/2012/12/28/what-is-a-
| rea... "A reactor trip causes all the control rods to insert
| into the reactor core, and shut down the plant in a very
| short time (about three seconds)."
|
| Yawn.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Japan has automatic shutdown systems during earthquakes.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_nuclear_accident
|
| > The proximate cause of the accident was the 2011 Tohoku
| earthquake and tsunami, which resulted in electrical grid
| failure and damaged nearly all of the power plant's backup
| energy sources. The subsequent inability to sufficiently
| cool reactors after shutdown compromised containment and
| resulted in the release of radioactive contaminants into
| the surrounding environment.
|
| Yawn?
| Lammy wrote:
| Note to self: do not install coastal auxiliary generators
| below sea-level.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Or over an active seismic fault?
| philwelch wrote:
| One person died from radiation exposure at Fukushima,
| from lung cancer, four years later. More people died from
| the evacuation. More deaths occur from rooftop solar
| installations, as fatal roofing accidents are one of the
| most common workplace fatalities. Electrical linemen also
| have a high rate of workplace fatalities, which means the
| power lines themselves are even more deadly.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Yes, if you don't count "we had to move a hundred
| thousand people", it wasn't a very big deal.
| philwelch wrote:
| The evacuations were likely an overreaction.
| kelnos wrote:
| So what? We don't get a do-over. The evacuations -- and
| all the bad outcomes that followed -- happened.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It took more than a decade before it was deemed safe for
| everyone to return, and decommissioning the plant alone
| is costing tens of billions over several decades.
| kelnos wrote:
| Not sure why you're comparing utility-scale generation in
| Japan to tiny-scale residential generation here. I doubt
| many people building utility-scale solar farms on the
| ground are falling off roofs during those builds.
|
| Rate of accidents for linemen is irrelevant; you need
| that sort of work regardless of your generation source.
| kelnos wrote:
| Sure, because we all know these safety systems are 100%
| reliable, and nothing like Fukushima (yes, I know, not
| quite the same conditions, but that's not the point) could
| happen again.
| BoiledCabbage wrote:
| I've come to realize there are a percentage of people who are
| unable to visualize risk unless they have personally observed
| the issue. While others can visualize risk that has not yet
| happened.
|
| I'm general those in the first group, while it comes in many
| forms, it seems to boil down to "What are you worried about,
| X hasn't happened". Trying to present it as neutrally as I
| can the two side seen to be "Hey you're playing Russian
| roulette, the bullet is going to hit you if you keep pulling
| the trigger, stop before it does and their response is.
| 'Nothing has happened so far why are you worrying about
| nothing?'"
|
| The opposite perspective is "You worry about every possible
| thing that could ever happen. There are a billion things that
| could happen it's useless worrying about them all so just
| worry about the ones we've seen happen and are likely to
| occur."
|
| Both have their merits and their downfalls. And I think these
| views have become more visible recently.
|
| I feel more strongly towards one approach than the other, but
| I feel that often times people talk past each other because
| they're using fundamentally different frameworks.
|
| So not weighing in one way or the other here. More just
| observing that this seems to be an instance of it between OP
| and you.
| Aloha wrote:
| Two of those you linked were early/experimental/research
| reactors.
| Lammy wrote:
| I included ones that were connected to the grid :)
|
| e: minus San Onofre which was already mentioned in the
| article.
| Aloha wrote:
| San Onofre was also functionally end of life, I would
| argue.
| adfm wrote:
| What steps are being taken to transition to other forms of
| sustainable power generation beyond 2030? Solar and wind are
| pricing coal out of the market and modern nuclear options seem
| viable, yet we keep hearing "five more years."
| shrubble wrote:
| If my math is right on the "$6 billion over 5 years" then that is
| 2250 MW capacity * 720 *12 to get a bit more than 19000 Gwh per
| year. So what is the annual, billable power generation for this
| nuclear plant?
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| At most $6 billion, this is obviously a listing of the worst
| case, not best or expected cost.
| epistasis wrote:
| Has there ever been a case of a nuclear project that came in
| under the worst case projection? I'm sure there have been one
| or two. But typically nuclear is known for blowing past the
| cost estimates, not staying within them.
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Yes, all the time. Also, we aren't talking about building a
| new plant here, just maintaining an old one.
| beders wrote:
| That doesn't make sense. Especially not at the price point we are
| talking. The money is better spent elsewhere.
|
| Just look at this and draw your own conclusions:
|
| https://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.html
| kelnos wrote:
| Ok, so if we shut off 8.5% of the electricity supply
| today(ish), where do we make up for that shortfall while we
| spend 2-3 years building a solar+battery farm to replace it?
|
| Most likely we'd make up for the lack of that plant by burning
| more natural gas, at least in the short/medium term.
|
| Also not sure why you think that price point is out of whack.
| Seems well in line with current CA electricity prices.
|
| This plant should not run forever, but extending its life
| another 5 years seems entirely prudent.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| How much does a 2 GW Solar + (2 GW?) battery cost compared to a
| new nuclear plant?
|
| It's disingenuous to compare solar to nuclear without the
| equivalent storage.
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